Think of Me by Frances Liardet

Author:Frances Liardet [Liardet, Frances]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2022-01-18T12:00:00+00:00

I place the list on the table. ‘What is this?’

‘It’s a prompt, dear boy. When you write your report, simply group your responses under these headings.’ Frobisher leans forward, parks his heavy arms on the table. ‘Look, Acton. I’ll be candid. I can see how this happened. It’s a new post, you have a hundred calls on your time, and there’s that blessed blank page staring up at you. Anyone can suffer a bout of writer’s block.’

I pour milk into my cup of tea. In the short interval since I served Frobisher, the milk has turned and it splits into tiny white worms. Like the milk, my thoughts curdle and spin. Frobisher continues, unperturbed by my lack of response.

‘I’ve had very good news of you, both from your curate Clive Perry and from your parish council. Administratively you are diligent. In your pastoral ministry, again, impressive and energetic.’ He leans slightly on the adjectives to indicate that they’re Clive’s choice and not his.

‘That’s very kind of Clive,’ I manage to say before Frobisher grinds on.

‘Turning now to this last element …’ His forefinger squashes down on the word Mission. ‘Mr Perry has pointed out, very reasonably, that no one would expect leaps and bounds on this front. But what I do expect of you, at this juncture, now that you’ve got the measure of the place, is some views. Some ideas on how this gathering-in might be accomplished. I need not remind you that you are, of course, not simply priest of a congregation but vicar to the parish.’

‘That’s true. The whole parish, whether they come to church or not.’

‘Exactly. That is why we reach out, after all. To bring people into a community which draws its strength, its life, from communal worship and fellowship in the Lord. To seek out those who have strayed from His ways like lost sheep.’

In the long silence that follows I look out through the open back door into the garden. The sunshine is very strong just now, shining hard on the path and the unkempt grass.

‘I don’t want to be rounding people up like a sheepdog. If sheepdogs grip they get disqualified.’

Frobisher is puzzled. ‘What, pray, is gripping?’

‘When the dog bites a sheep.’

He’s looking at me gravely, his head low. At close quarters I have no choice but to stare straight into his small penetrating eyes, behind which I sense the thorough and powerful workings of his brain.

‘You’re not a sheepdog, Mr Acton. You are a shepherd.’ He snaps his briefcase shut and looks down. ‘Come now, little man. That is not your bed.’

Bailey is lying with his head on Frobisher’s right foot.

‘Did you get a hundred lines?’ Tom asks, when Frobisher is gone and we are driving to Waltham for food. ‘Or did Bailey melt his heart?’

‘A mixture of both.’ I tell Tom about the Mission part of my brief, Frobisher’s urgings.

‘But you’re meant to round them up, aren’t you? You did at Fulbrook.’

And at Alver Shore before Fulbrook. But during the last few years at Fulbrook the gaps in pews were larger, the faces older.

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